83 YO Woman Abducted by Aliens!
by Vivienne Grainger
Summary: Pretty much SAWGBWMP, Seriousness Alternated With Giggles But Without Much Plot.  Unsurprisingly, the site does not have a category for that.


The current Mayor of Portland has a mother, just like everyone else, but Veleta is not her name, and they do not share Veleta's last name herein.

* * *

"It's an assignment, Sunny. It's not a subject for debate."

Ironhide turned away to hide his grin, but Sunstreaker could still _feel_ it, clear across Optimus Prime's enormous desk.

"Fine," he snapped. "How long?"

"You'll be there for three days. Then Sideswipe will relieve you." The Prime offered the yellow mech a data chip. "Directions and instructions. You'll be relieving Jazz."

Sunstreaker snatched it out of Optimus' hand, rammed it into his wrist slot, uploaded the data, yanked out the chip, and tossed it back onto his Prime's desk. "See you in three days," he said, turned around, and left.

Optimus sighed. "Well, that could have gone worse," he said to Ironhide. "Somehow."

The older bot grinned, without any humor in the expression at all. "You got them rose-colored optics in again, boss," he told his leader. "'Scuse me. I gotta go pound the snot outta that yellow bot."

"See you next shift," Optimus told his departing back.

* * *

Jazz handed his responsibilities off to a newly-snotless Sunstreaker with a commed warning: "This's a nice human, Sunny. No terrorizin' her."

Sunstreaker snarled in return, "OK, OK, I got it. No terrorizing. Three days of boredom, and I'm outta here."

"I hope it is borin'. Th' gangs made a run at her night before this."

"What'd you do?"

"Transformed an' shot th' engine outta their car. Grabbed one a' their guns and bent th' barrel inna circle."

"That was enough?"

"Th' first time. Might not be th' second go-round. You got th' chip about minimizin' collateral damage, right? There's families with human sparklin's livin' all around here." Jazz paused. "If you shoot – don't miss."

Sunstreaker paused. "No collateral damage. Right."

He was parked, in alt-mode (the chip warned against transformation unless defending against a raid), on the street, at ninety degrees to Jazz, who was parked under a carport, facing the street. Both had holoforms in the front seats. Jazz pulled out, preparing to leave, and commed, "Any last questions?"

"Nah," Sunstreaker said, and backed himself into the car port.

The sun was barely up when the lights in the house came on, and a frail-looking elderly woman, mother of the Mayor of Portland, Oregon, wandered out to pick up an object the data chip identified as "the morning newspaper" off the strange short-cropped growth ("lawn") in front of the house. "Morning," she said on returning, "I'm Veleta Hargrove, and you are?"

"Sunstreaker, ma'am."

She smiled, that strange human mimickry of a 'bot facial gesture, and said, "Well, Sunstreaker, welcome to my home. Have you had your energon for today?"

"No," Sunstreaker said, slowly reformulating his ideas on what it was going to be like to bodyguard a human, "I haven't."

"Be right back with some," Veleta said, and went back into the house.

"Right back" was longer by her definition than by Sunny's, but she had a cube in her hands, and she knew what to do with it. When it was added directly to the fuel tank, of course, Sunstreaker couldn't taste it, or swallow it, but it added a nice glow to his day anyway. "Thank you," he said politely.

"Welcome," Veleta said with a charming smile, which corrugated her little pink already-corrugated face even further. Sunstreaker knew from the data chip that the corrugations happened to people as they aged – Samuel Prime and Mikaela, for instance, had almost none of them, while Spike Witwicky had more, but not so many as Veleta. Humans didn't call them corrugations, but rather, "wrinkles."

"Wrinkles" for Sunstreaker were things Ratchet beat out of your plating for you. Couldn't this species get _anything_ right?

"So today," Veleta said, "I'm going to go out in the back yard in a few minutes to do my tai chi, and then later on, we'll be going to the supermarket. I'm told you drive yourself?"

"Yes, I do."

"Well, that's fine, then, I'm too old to drive anyway. Do you need anything more before I go inside, and then out in back?"

"No, I'm fine." Sunstreaker broke precedent with himself to add, "Thank you for asking."

When the screen door clacked behind her, he put his holoform in the front seat, and pulled around into the back yard. His brief was to guard the woman; in Sunstreaker's eyes, that meant that her house could take care of itself.

And slaggitall anyway, why did a human have to be so fraggin' _charming_? He couldn't resent it as much as he wanted to, if she was like that.

He found a tall tree, and settled under it.

* * *

"Going to rain soon," Veleta Hargrove said, standing foursquare on a mat she had unrolled on the grass.

"Oh? Will you be finished by then?" _I don't want fraggin' Earth rain-spots on my finish._

The elderly woman, dressed in loose, flexible clothing, moved herself and her energy in ways that Sunstreaker did not expect. He was a little surprised that he could perceive them; they weren't all that different from mechs' energy signatures. Have to tell Ironhide that, or maybe Bumblebee? Some of the scouts, anyway.

"Oh, yes," she said, and continued moving. She had performed this kata for thirty years, and no longer needed to pay it all her attention. "You can tell by the color of the clouds, and when it breaks, it's going to be a cold, heavy rain. When that happens, I'll pick up and go back in the house, and you should be undercover too. It's almost October, and not that warm out."

It was a bit too warm, in fact, for Sunstreaker's taste. He wondered if a cold rain would actually feel good on his plating, and to the Pit with the spots.

The woman continued her leisurely movements of both body and energy. Sunstreaker continued to watch her. Neither was prepared for the lance of lightning that arced to earth just beyond the fenced backyard, nor the immediate grumble of thunder thereafter.

Veleta said, "Oh my!" and picked up her mat. "You'd better get undercover, Sunstreaker. That lightning was awfully close."

The next bolt struck the tree he was under, and its energy knocked both Veleta Hargrove and Sunstreaker completely offline.

* * *

Veleta blinked awake, outside, for some reason, as rain was falling. Had she no more sense than to nap outdoors in late September?

She picked herself up.

And up, and up, and up.

Not only was getting up very easy, much more so than usual for her 83-year-old body, but surely, she should not be able to see the roof of her own house?

There was another elderly woman lying on her lawn. Veleta moved to prod her awake, but was struck by the motion of her own golden hands.

_Golden_ hands? Surely not. But when she turned them back and forth, they obeyed her instructions.

They seemed to be made of metal. She looked down at the rest of herself, also made of metal. She ran the hands-that-obeyed-her over that metallic body, and felt herself as herself … also made of metal.

"Oh my goodness," Veleta Hargrove said in delight, "I'm a Transformer!"

So … if she were a Transformer, could she transform? She found that the thought was father, or perhaps mother, to the deed, and roared off down the street in delight, the unconscious woman on her lawn forgotten.

* * *

"Yes," the Mayor of Portland, Oregon, said. "That's my mother."

The attendant covered the woman's face, and moved the gurney away.

Veleta Hargrove's body had been discovered by her neighbors, quite by chance. They had come to the back door to knock and see if she needed anything after the power went out in the thunder storm, and found her lying on the lawn.

"What happens now?" the Mayor asked. He was a youngish man who wore glasses and a graying inch-long crew cut.

The police detective in charge said politely, "We'll have to have an autopsy, Your Honor, as she died suddenly, in suspicious circumstances."

"Suspicious? She was eighty-three years old, in her own back yard, where she usually did tai chi!"

"Yes," the detective said patiently, "but she was under guard by one of the Transformers, to deal with the gang threat that was made against her, and that Transformer is nowhere to be found."

* * *

Contrary to the detective's experience of fleeing felons, "nowhere" in this case could be precisely defined: temporarily between mileposts such-and-such and the one after it on Interstate 84, just out of it origins in Portland, Oregon, eastbound but well shy of Echo, Utah, the interstate's other terminus.

Veleta Hargrove and the Transformer were doing a steady eighty down the interstate. Big rigs blew by her pretty consistently, just as she easily passed the scandalized drivers and passengers of cars which clung to the legal limit, but she was delighted by her speed.

Also, her vehicle, in all the many senses of that word, seemed to know where it was going. (Sunny's erstwhile body had cable memory, just as humans have muscle memory.) She was content to be along for the ride, and free to concentrate on the experience itself.

She'd never before done eighty in her life. It was fantastic, she realized, to have one's horizons broadened in one's senior years: to have the telephone poles flick past like matchsticks, to collect those scandalized stares.

Ironhide could have confirmed that it was indeed broadening to have one's horizons expanded late in life, but she hadn't met him yet.

Her car-body moved into the right-hand lane and dropped to fifty-five just as the sign saying, "Mt. St. Hilary Recreational Area ½ Mile" flashed by.

* * *

Veleta Hargrove's human body had been moved to the morgue, where it occupied one of six gurneys. Hers was indistinguishable from the others except by size, as they were all covered in their entirety by white sheets: a fat one, a short one, a tall one, two others that could have been mistaken for Veleta.

Tonight's morgue attendant was former Army Specialist Anthony Morgan, using his GI Bill benefits to become a pharmacist. At this particular point in time, it meant that he was putting a lot of work in on mastering first chemistry, and then organic chemistry. His torture for the night was figuring out alkanes vs. alkenes. It was not precisely the grudge match of the century, and he kept yawning.

He'd intended to be a doctor, but he realized that he'd seen enough death at Mission City to last him for the rest of his life.

As a morgue attendant, he had to log the bodies in and out, and ensure that no one got up and walked away. (Insider's joke.) He did no further work with them.

He'd seen for himself that bodies sometimes, with the combination of intestinal gases and muscle relaxation, gasped and sat up on their gurneys. It didn't bother him any more.

So, when untoward noises came from the back room, he carefully shut his chem book, and got up to see what was up in there, with no expectations that he would find anything other than another sitter.

He was not prepared to see an elderly naked woman (she had stepped out of the adult diaper bodies are clad in after death; the last relaxation of bladder and bowel sphincters would otherwise be quite inconvenient) standing in front of the only light in the room, which cast a pale glow over the stainless-steel surface of a refrigerator marked "Samples Only – Do Not Put Your Lunch in Here." She was staring, in a combination of fascination and horror, at her own reflection.

Former Army Specialist Tony Morgan said, horrified himself, "Ma'am?" He reached for a lab coat, and handed it to her.

She took it from him, but clearly had no idea how to put it on. He assisted her.

Then she looked straight at him, and uttered a combination of clicks, whistles, and what sounded like "Tut-tut-tut-tut-tut-tut."

Sunstreaker would never know how fortunate he was that Tony Morgan had heard other beings speak in that tongue, and remembered it clearly. The veteran headed for the phone.

Sunstreaker's body was experiencing a lot of pressure in the lower abdomen; lacking knowledge of this as he did of clothes, he relieved it.

Tony was on the phone to the admin guy at the front desk. "I need a patch-through to police HQ," Tony said, and as Sunstreaker enjoyed the diminishing of pressure, he added, "oh, and a janitor equipped to deal with a urine spill, too."

* * *

The car took Veleta to Mt. St. Hilary, stopping in front of an entrance to what clearly was a military base of some sort. Veleta transformed, as she saw many other Transformers in what she would shortly come to know as root-mode gathered around.

A red bipedal Transformer approached her, and uttered a series of clicks and whistles.

Sideswipe had said, "Bro? What are you doing here? I thought you were on duty."

Veleta said, puzzled, "Does anyone here speak English?"

Sideswipe cocked his head to one side. "Why? Cybertronian not good enough for you?" he said, in English.

"My name is Veleta Hargrove," Veleta said, "and I need to talk to somebody about — this." She waved a hand down what had become her self.

The red Transformer stared at her in stupefaction, then shut his mouth, and took one of her arms. "Come on," he said. "I know who you've got to see."

* * *

The Mayor of Portland, Oregon, stared at - whatever it was that occupied his mother's body.

His mother's body stared right back.

She was still speaking in clicks and whistles: Transformers speak English because they have downloaded it. Veleta's body had spoken that language all its life (well, almost), but Sunstreaker didn't have access to his vocabulary files, or her memories; in her body, he could neither speak English nor understand what was said in that language around him. He could, disturbingly enough, accurately sign her name (muscle memory).

"Geez Louise," said the Mayor. "If you're right, Tony, that's Cybertronian she's speaking. I think I'll call Optimus Prime. Maybe the Transformers themselves can sort this out for us."

The police detective, called to the morgue in the middle of an otherwise quiet Sunday night, snorted. "I sure hope so," he said, snapping shut his notebook. "I'm going to have the hell of a time writing this case up as it is."

* * *

Veleta accompanied the red Transformer through the orange halls of the Mt. St. Hilary base. Other bots sometimes gave her a scandalized look. She didn't know why.

An enormous black Transformer scowled at her, grabbed the other arm, and almost pulled the red one off his feet. He clacked and whistled at her. The red one clacked and whistled back; there were more exchanges. Then the black one clacked and whistled one last time, but his painfully tight grip on her arm also loosened.

Ironhide had said, "What the - ? You're on duty, Transformer. Why aren't you where you should be?"

Sideswipe replied, "This isn't Sunny! It's the human he was guarding!"

Whereupon Ironhide had narrowed his optics, and said, "If this is one of your pranks, Sideswipe, you will both spend the rest of your lives in the brig!"

"It's not! I'm taking him – her – to Ratchet!"

"I'll go with you," Ironhide said grimly, and loosened his grip on what was, to him, Sunny's arm.

* * *

"Well," said the tall boxy one introduced to her as "Ratchet the Hatchet, our medic," which earned the red Transformer a glare, "this is quite a sight to see."

"It's quite a predicament to be in, too," Veleta said.

"I can't imagine," Ratchet said, pleasantly. "Trust your brother to glitch things up," he said to Sideswipe (she couldn't keep calling him "the red one").

"Hey! How is this Sunny's fault?"

Diplomatically, Veleta said, "It's kind of hard to imagine a bolt of lightning being anybody's fault. Although when I next talk to God, I'm going to have a word or two with Him about it."

"God?" said Sideswipe blankly.

"Humans' Primus," Ratchet said shortly; he had been comming Optimus. "Ma'am, you don't know these two. I assure you, anything they get into is their fault. _Always_."

Veleta, who had taught school in her youth, said, "Sunstreaker never told me he was a bad boy. But honestly, Dr. Ratchet," Ratchet preened a bit at being so addressed, "if it's anyone's fault it's mine. I thought I had time to do my morning tai chi and get in the house before a storm broke. I was wrong; I remember the lightning hitting a tree near us. The next strike must have gotten us both."

"Hmm. Well, it's a theory, and we'll take it for a good one until there's a better. In the meantime, Mrs. Hargrove, I think you had better resign yourself to staying here overnight. Our leader, Optimus Prime, is coming to speak with you."

"Oh my," said Veleta.

* * *

"Her hand is quite badly burned," said Veleta's physician, called to the Mayor's house. "Her left ring finger. The track goes up her arm and neck, but that's just a minor burn on the surface. Her wedding ring is melted into the skin. I can numb it for her, and cut it off, but it's going to ruin the ring."

"Do it," said the Mayor. "I can get a jeweler to put it back together." His cell phone chose that inconvenient moment to ring, and he turned away to answer it with his name.

The doctor, recognizing that he was dealing with someone quite unusual here, not at all like an Alzheimer's sufferer (and Mrs. Hargrove had shown no sign of that dreadful disease prior to this), first numbed the area with a topical anesthetic, and then by injection put anesthetic into both the median and ulnar nerves at the wrist, just to be safe. Then he cut the ring off, and cleaned and dressed the wound.

Sunstreaker watched without fear. He had no experience of being human, after all, and the doctor's careful preparations had left him without pain throughout the procedure.

The Mayor turned back to his mother and her doctor. "But – she's right here in front of me, Optimus. How could she be in Mt. St. Hilary at the same time?"

"Ah," said Optimus, on the other end of the line. "Well that, you see, is quite a story."

* * *

Veleta discovered herself hungry, and Ratchet got her a cube of energon.

"Is it soup?" she asked, taking it from him.

"No. It's called energon, and it's what we use to fuel our bodies." He smiled. "You're not used to it. I'm interested to see what you think."

Veleta took a cautious sip. It tasted of gasoline, but that wasn't bad, in this body; it had delightful overtones she could neither identify nor categorize as well. She drank again. "It's … interesting," she said at last. "It has a complex flavor, like a good white wine."

"I see," Ratchet said. "I'll have to try wine next time I eat human food."

"You can eat human food?"

"Some of it. Sideswipe once ate a hundred tacos on a bet."

"A _hundred_ tacos," Veleta said, a look of pure horror on her face. "Oh, my. They are like thirteen-year-olds, aren't they?"

"Indeed they are," Ratchet said with a smile. "Now, as for sleeping arrangements, you can stay here in the med bay if you like – I've a secluded berth over there – or you can bunk in with Sideswipe."

"Oh, I'll let Sideswipe play host. I rather like him," Veleta said.

"Most people, human or bot, do," Ratchet said dryly. "Many of them come to regret that later."

* * *

Jazz, on the Mayor's cell phone with Sunny – intermittently with the Mayor himself, who had to show him how to use it – said, "It's a human recharge berth, Sunny. Your body will find it much more comfortable to sleep on than a hard floor."

"But," said Sunstreaker, "it's all … squishy. Just like a human."

Sunny had been instructed in the use of restrooms, in which you didn't rest. This was also a restroom, in which you _did_ rest, but it was called a "bedroom." Human nomenclature was very surprising.

But then, the creatures parked in a "driveway" and drove in a "parkway." He would suspect a species capable of that of _anything_.

* * *

"But – you've only one bed. Berth."

"Sunny and I usually sleep curled up together," Sideswipe said.

"Like puppies," Veleta said, before she could stop herself.

There was a brief pause as both Ratchet and Sideswipe accessed the Internet to define the term for themselves. "Yes," Ratchet said, glaring at Sideswipe, "_exactly_ like that. As in, no 'facing, Sides."

"Wasn't going to offer," the red twin said, heat registering over his faceplate. "She looks like Sunny, but she's Veleta."

"So long as that's clear," Ratchet said, still glowering. He turned to Veleta, his expression lightening. "And I'll see you in the morning, Veleta. Sides will bring you to the med bay after you have some energon together."

"Thank you, Ratchet."

The door closed after the medic, and Veleta turned to her host. "Sides, you might as well tell me how you and Sunny got such a bad reputation with Ratchet and Ironhide, and then about this 'facing,' because I am an old woman, and I haven't misspent near enough of my life."

* * *

Sunstreaker was so disturbed by the human's berth – it had a habit of shifting out from under one, and it was disturbingly _squishy_ – that he slept on the floor.

In the morning, he was very sorry to have made that decision. He hurt everywhere, and he could not turn his head. It wasn't that he didn't try; the muscles seized up, pain foremost, and refused to work.

Primus, but this body was fragile! He'd always considered every human he'd ever met to be a whiner, but maybe not, after all ….

* * *

Sides wanted to, but just couldn't 'face with his brother's body, because Sunny wasn't inside any longer.

He just couldn't. He talked long into the night with an elderly human woman, instead.

* * *

Slingshot was dispatched with the rest of the Aerialbots to fly the Mayor and his mother, and her doctor, to Mt. St. Hilary. Fortunately, no one on board got airsick.

* * *

"But," said the human doctor, "lightning carries 30,000 amperes, and transfers five coulombs of electric charge and 500 million joules of energy. That will likely be a – a terminal experience for Veleta's body."

Ratchet smiled. "We can produce the amperage and charge without the joules. She should be quite safe. We have done this before, you know, a time or six."

"Oh," said the human doctor. Oh indeed.

"What happened to my hand?" Veleta said, picking up Sunstreaker's elderly, liver-spotted human hand quite gently, with one of her own fingers.

"Your ring conducted the electricity that swapped you in the first place," her doctor said. "I had to cut it off to tend the burn."

"My ring?"

"It's okay," said the Mayor. "I'm having a jeweler rebuild it."

"Thank you, son. Well," said Veleta, and smiled at Sunstreaker, "time to go. See you in a bit, Sides."

"Yeah, see you later," Sideswipe said, and picked up his twin, carrying him to the table next to the one Veleta lay down on.

* * *

"What the Pit is this?" Optimus Prime said. "You weren't exactly gracious about being assigned to guard her in the first place, Sunstreaker." He turned his attention to the red twin. "And why are you involved at all?"

Sideswipe grinned and shrugged. "I like her," he said.

Optimus put his head to one side, and considered. "You'll have to make it clear to Mrs. Hargrove that scheduling will not be completely consistent from week to week. Sometimes, one or the other of you will be on a lengthy patrol. Sometimes, you both will."

"Jazz said he would back us up if we're both gone, Optimus."

"And if he's occupied?"

"He'll send someone else." Sideswipe smiled at his leader. "And isn't this a great thing for publicity? We can't kiss babies, they're too small. I suppose we could rescue cats from trees, but this is once a week, every week."

Ironhide snorted. But when the benefits of a plan had been outlined to the Prime by _Sideswipe_, who was not the quickest bot on the uptake, Optimus knew it was time to shake his head and sign off on it.

And that is how the brothers came to take Veleta Hargrove grocery shopping once a week for the next two years and a bit.

* * *

"Bereavement leave for a single day," Optimus said, laying the form down in front of him.

"Yes, Optimus," Sideswipe replied.

"For Mrs. Hargrove." He'd already telephoned the Mayor with his condolences.

"Yes," Sunstreaker said. "Sides is going to scan the hearse and take her body to the – the burying place."

"Why do organics have to do that?" Sideswipe said. "We can recycle. Can't they?"

"Under some unique and special circumstances, called 'organ donation,' yes," Ratchet said. "Mrs. Hargrove's death didn't fall into that category. She didn't die in a hospital."

Optimus said to Sideswipe, "So you'll come back here as a hearse?"

Sideswipe said helpfully, "No. There's a local car collector who will be glad to let me scan a Lambo Countach, right model year, even my color, when we're done."

Ratchet grinned at Sideswipe. "I always knew you were the sappy one," he said.

"I'll be along to take her from him to the grave," said Sunstreaker, glowering, "and then we'll stay for the ritual, go to the collector's house, and come back here."

Optimus shook his head. "But why?"

The twins exchanged a glance. "Because we liked her," Sideswipe said, finally. "That's all."

"Isn't that enough?" Sunstreaker asked.

Optimus stared at both of them for a long moment. Then he smiled, said, "Yes, it is," and signed the form.

Ratchet fidgeted for a moment, stared at Optimus, at Sunstreaker, at Sideswipe, and at Optimus again. Finally, he said, "I liked her as well. Can I come too?"

Optimus sighed. "Fill out the form," he said, passing one across his desk. "I'll sign it. Then, _if_ you are going to stay within the speed limit, you'd all better get going."

"Oh, well," said Sideswipe, "we've got hours, then."

A Look from the boss made him raise his hands. "Kidding, Optimus! Kidding!"

"But she did like to go fast," Sunstreaker said dreamily. "About eighty on the Interstate."

Every good leader knows when to fold 'em. Optimus accepted and signed Ratchet's request, and said firmly, "You will leave in an hour. That gives Ratchet time to get First Aid on-shift. Your speed on the Interstate is your business, and you are responsible for any fines. And that's an order."

They did eighty on the Interstate in Veleta's memory, and got caught, but they were lucky in their choice of cops. He was as big a sap as Sideswipe, and after they told him her story, he let them off.


End file.
